Sofia Echo: An international coalition of environmental groups says European demand for biofuels has driven local communities off their land in Africa and curbed the production of staple foods. In an effort to protect communal land in Africa,Friends of the Earth, an international network of environmental groups, is criticizing the European Union for driving land acquisition by foreign companies across sub-Saharan Africa. Report: Africa land for sale According to a report released by ...

Australian: Climate change adviser Lord Stern said yesterday the two MPs were thinking seriously about the future of the planet as they weighed up their decision on whether to support Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott. The former World Bank chief economist this week met Mr Oakeshott and Mr Windsor, who will play a key role in helping either Labor or the Coalition form government, to brief them on climate change. However, the third rural independent, Bob Katter, dismissed Lord Stern as a "lightweight" ...

Guardian: Specialist electric vehicle retailer EVStores has announced it will begin selling the Tazzari Zero electric vehicle in the UK from later this month. The company said the Zero, a compact two-seat vehicle, purpose built for battery electric propulsion, will be available from its London showroom from 12 September. The Zero is powered by lithium-ion batteries that boast a range between charges of around 140km or about 87 miles. The car is also expected to reach an electronically ...

BusinessWeek: Republican U.S. Senate candidates largely agreed on major issues during a debate Tuesday, but they spared no opportunity to criticize nuanced differences in how they finance their campaigns. Former Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, businessmen Bill Binnie and Jim Bender, attorney Ovide Lamontagne and former stockbroker Dennis Lamare participated in the debate at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge. The candidates all called for repealing what's left of federal stimulus funds, ...

Reuters: A global fund to help poorer countries switch to green industrial technology is vital in any new international pact to battle global warming, Switzerland's top climate change negotiator said on Wednesday. The official, Franz Perrez, was speaking at a news conference on the eve of a two-day gathering of environmental ministers and experts from some 45 countries to discuss how to reach agreement on a funding deal. "An agreement on viable long-term financing is one of the very ...

AP: Not a light bulb's worth of solar electricity has been produced on the millions of acres of public desert set aside for it. Not one project to build glimmering solar farms has even broken ground. Instead, five years after federal land managers opened up stretches of the Southwest to developers, vast tracts still sit idle. An Associated Press examination of U.S. Bureau of Land Management records and interviews with agency officials shows that the BLM operated a first-come, ...

BBC: Researchers have discovered that two distinct types of orca, a large and a pygmy form, are rapidly diverging, evolving away from each other. The scientists' study reveals each type of orca carries a unique gene mutation that benefits its particular lifestyle. The genetic change has occurred in the past 150,000 years, adding to evidence that the orcas are quickly evolving into two distinct species. Details of the research are published in the journal Biology Letters by an ...

LA Times: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Tuesday rebuked Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Corp., which operate refineries in Wilmington, for bankrolling a measure that would effectively scuttle the state's efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. "Go home, Texas oil companies," Villaraigosa urged at a news conference aimed at encouraging voters to oppose Proposition 23, a November ballot initiative to suspend California's 2006 climate change law until the state's unemployment rate ...

HOUSTON CHRONICLE: Federal environmental regulators took aim at Texas' rules for air pollution for the third time in five months Tuesday, saying some aspects violate the Clean Air Act. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rejected pieces of a program known as New Source Review, which dictates when industrial plants must implement additional pollution controls. Under federal guidelines, expanding industrial plants calculate their emissions to determine whether they need new pollution ...

Guardian: Mankind has a problem. We're heating the Earth and destroying its ecosystems so fast that we're killing off life as we know it. The fragile world around us, from rainforest canopies to marine life in our oceans, is the life support system we all depend on – for food, for shelter, for clean air. But we're trashing it, quickly, many habitats at a time, and putting ourselves in grave danger within our lifetimes. The overriding challenge of our generation is to protect the world around us ...

AP: Wave after wave of tar balls floated ashore Wednesday on the renowned Goa beaches after a ship dumped tons of waste oil off India's western coast, officials said. Semisolid lumps of oil formed layers up to six inches deep (15 centimeters deep) on beaches in the popular tourist destination. Scores of civic workers used brooms to collect and clear the oily debris, but still more tar balls were washing ashore about three days after officials believe a ship dumped burnt oil at ...

AFP: India's government said it remained fully supportive of IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri after a damning UN-ordered review called for changes to the Nobel Prize-winning climate change body's leadership. "Pachauri has the full support of the government," Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said late Tuesday after a report on the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) called for major reforms in its functioning. The UN-ordered probe said a major overhaul was required of ...

Guardian: Saving Species (Radio 4) gives itself a tall order. It is, says the ever cheerful presenter Brett Westwood, "the programme dedicated to saving the world's wildlife". Yesterday's edition began with tadpole shrimps that, while not bonny ("they look primeval"), are significant. "They're the oldest extant species on earth," we heard. They are also fantastically self-sufficient: hermaphrodite females who self-fertilise easily: "Blown in the wind, or washed in the waves – it's enough to ...

Telegraph: In a damning report out earlier this week, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was criticised for making a number of errors about the potential impacts of global warming. The most notable mistake was wrongly predicting that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035. The IPCC was also told to stick to the science rather than straying into the politics of climate change. The review, by the InterAcademy Council, called for "fundamental reform', including a more ...

National Public Radio: California lawmakers have rejected a bill seeking to ban plastic shopping bags after a contentious debate over whether the state was going too far in trying to regulate personal choice. The Democratic bill, which failed late Tuesday, would have been the first statewide ban, although a few California cities already prohibit their use. The measure offered California an opportunity to emerge at the forefront of a global trend, said Sen. Gil Cedillo, who carried the measure on the ...

Business Green: A study by a computer scientist at the University of Toronto suggests that the computer models used to predict climate change may be undermined due to a lack of programming expertise. Steve Easterbrook, of the University's Department of Computer Science, has had his paper, Climate Change: A Grand Software Challenge, accepted by the 2010 FSE/SDP Workshop on the Future of Software Engineering Research. In the pape he suggests that, because many climate prediction software modelling ...

BBC: Researchers working on trials of genetically modified crops in Norfolk have grown potatoes which resist disease. The scientists at the John Innes Centre in Norwich say they could be just five years away from a commercial product.

BBC: A Tasmanian Devil who scientists hoped was immune to a facial cancer that threatens his species has been euthanised after developing tumours. The marsupial, named Cedric, was believed to have a natural immunity to the disease that he could pass on to future generations. But two weeks ago researchers found untreatable tumours. His death is a blow to scientists, who say Tasmanian Devils could be extinct in the wild within 20 years. Animals with the facial cancer ...

Business Green: Senate majority leader Harry Reid said yesterday that he will attempt to revive the stalled climate and energy bill ahead of November's mid-term elections and is looking to secure Republican support in order to add a Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) to the controversial legislation. Speaking in a teleconference with reporters, Reid said he remained committed to salvaging energy legislation this year and was keen to beef up the version of the bill currently before the ...

BBC: An ancient reef found in the Pacific may provide clues to what will happen to coral when sea temperatures rise. A team of researchers from Australia and New Zealand have discovered a huge 9,000-year-old reef surprisingly far south. Lord Howe Island is 600km east of the Australian mainland and has a small modern coral reef - the furthest south in the world. The ancient reef however is nearly 30 times as large as the modern reef. The scientists, headed by Colin ...